Just thinking about our inadequate resources can fill us with fear and hopelessness. But Rose Marie Miller has a different perspective. For her true weakness is a giftborn out of a deep sense of need, it drives us to Christ and unleashes all the redeeming energy of God’s grace in our lives and others. Rose Marie Miller, a living example of God’s power in weakness, weaves together biblical insights and personal experience and shares a new, gospel-driven way of living where the way up is down, the weak become strong, and the dead receive life. God, for whom nothing is impossible, uses weak people to change the world—and that includes you!

    Join His mission and change the world."

    And this consumer-driven approach is seeping into the church.Across the country, churches are creating entertaining, pop culture-savvy services that feel more market-driven than ministry. On the menu? A proven blend of dynamic music, high-tech dazzle, and topical teachings. And just like any successful product, churches are launching campuses that build on their brand.But is the franchised church of today leading to the disenfranchised believers of tomorrow? Though thousands flock to these services, how many lives are truly being changed? Have we traded real truth for relevancy?Franchising McChurch takes an honest look at the rise of consumer-minded ministries. Authors Thomas White and John Yeats tackle a spiritual shift that is raising provocative issues such as:The blurry line between entertainment and evangelismA marketing approach to ministryThe warped yardstick for measuring church successFeel-good messages that avoid tough truthsCandid and compelling, Franchising McChurch calls us back to the heart of Christ's church, and shares the Biblical design for delivering meaningful, life-changing ministry in a fast-food world.

    The plague of our day, terrorism, begins with the word "terror." Fear, it seems, has taken up a hundred-year lease on the building next door and set up shop. Oversized and rude, fear herds us into a prison of unlocked doors. Wouldn't it be great to walk out?Imagine your life, wholly untouched by angst. What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats? If you could hover a fear magnet over your heart and extract every last shaving of dread, insecurity, or doubt, what would remain? Envision a day, just one day, where you could trust more and fear less.Can you imagine your life without fear?

    The good news is that coming to the end of their expectations means they re on the brink of great wisdom, peace, and joy. That s what the ancient author of Ecclesiastes helps us figure out it is quite possible to face detours and dead-ends in life and still find more satisfaction than you ever could have imagined."""Better" explores the mysteries, scandalous lines, and deep truths of Ecclesiastes and applies them to life today. "Better"seeks to show how the questions of the heart find their answer in the person of Jesus. Here you will find a vision of life that is neither naive nor cynical, but realistic and hopeful. Because the truth is, when God answers the questions, you finally realize what is "better.""

    Jesus-style! One ordinary life making a powerful difference—that's God's amazing "Plan A" on display. Using real-life, riveting stories and a contemporary scriptural lens, Dwight Robertson shows how God's exciting kingdom-building plan takes life—literally—in ordinary individuals. Robertson explains how God calls and equips average, everyday people—even those who don't think they have anything special to contribute—to creative ministries that are as distinct and unique as the individual. God's Plan A encourages average Christians everywhere to follow the model of Jesus: ministering up close, one life at a time, outside church walls in our everyday lives. God's Plan A involves all of us ... and there is no Plan B.

    Yet so often, we too easily settle for someone else's descriptions, the Cliff notes from another's spiritual journey. We are content for "God-experts" to do the heavy lifting and then give us the bottom line. And like any secondhand information, after enough times through the grapevine, the truth about God deteriorates and crumbs of rumor are all that remain.But when life derails, and things don't go as we had planned, our thin view of God is challenged. In those critical moments, we can choose to walk away from God, or to let our questions lead us home. When we choose to wrestle with God, to engage Him for ourselves, we-like Jacob and Job and David-will see rumors die and revelation come alive.It's time to hear the magnificent, Divine Invitation. It's time to take God up on His offer and embrace the mystery and majesty of knowing Him for ourselves.

    So start here to find practical help and encouraging stories about what authentic Christianity looks like. Welcome to the journey of a lifetime.

    Demanding schedules and technology have been able to crowd out what matters most: family, friends, and even faith.Pat Gelsinger understands this challenge. As a prominent executive in Silicon Valley, Pat worked hard to juggle a thriving career and his family. Pat's pursuit of balance led him to dynamic, time-tested wisdom that will put readers' lives in perspective. The Juggling Act, an updated and expanded revision of Balancing Your Family, Faith and Work, details the guidelines for balancing life with insights on the importance of prioritizing life, why we should have a personal mission statement, how to be an effective employee, the value of good support systems, and sharing faith in the workplace. Readers will end their wrestling match with life and start living it.

    Essential to the Christian life? Definitely. Drawing on Jesus’s parable of the shrewd manager in Luke 16, Rick Lawrence explores Jesus’s shocking mandate to be as shrewd as Satan and as innocent as the Holy Spirit. In fact, Jesus implies, if we are going to be any good for the Kingdom of God, we’ve got to be a lot shrewder than we are now. Shrewd shows us how Jesus was naturally shrewd in every encounter he had, using leverage such as laughter, generosity, and bluntness to influence a situation for good. God calls us to be shrewd without evil intent, just as Jesus was. Because the truth is that we have no salvation outside of the holy shrewdness of a loving God. And that’s a scandalous story worth telling.

    He has spent more than ten years with a debilitating illness, but this book is not about grief. He has found joy in the midst of sorrow, but this book is not about looking on the bright side. Seeing Through the Fog is about living well when you realize you can’t live forever. It is about having gratitude for each sunrise, birthday, and moment of knowing God more. It is about holding hope when circumstances hold pain. With stories, wisdom and unique content distinct from the popular film series about Ed, Seeing Through the Fog will encourage readers in their own difficulties and give them hope for their future.

    So she invites you to explore the real-life implications of knowing God sees you, He loves you passionately, and He's intimately involved with every aspect of your life. God wants you to see Him too and to partner with you in bringing about His kingdom.When you take this reality to heart, you will live more honestly, confidently, and fearlessly—because everything looks different once you really see the God who sees you.

    The question of why there is pain and suffering in the world has confounded every generation; yet there has not been a major book from a Christian perspective exploring why they exist for many years. The two classics in this area are When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, which was published more than thirty years ago, and C. S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain, published more than seventy years ago. The great secular book on the subject, Elisabeth Ku¨bler-Ross’s On Death and Dying, was first published in 1969. It’s time for a new understanding and perspective, and who better to tackle this complex subject than Timothy Keller? As the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, Timothy Keller is known for the unique insights he shares, and his series of books has guided countless readers in their spiritual journeys. Walking with God through Pain and Suffering will bring a much-needed, fresh viewpoint on this important issue.

    I was tired of being tired, burned out on busy. And, it seemed almost everyone I talked with was in the same boat: longing for connection, meaning, depth, but settling for busy.I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, neighbor, writer, and I know all too well that settling feeling. But over the course of the last few years, I’ve learned a way to live, marked by grace, love, rest, and play. And it’s changing everything.Present Over Perfect is an invitation to this journey that changed my life. I’ll walk this path with you, a path away from frantic pushing and proving, and toward your essential self, the one you were created to be before you began proving and earning for your worth.Written in Shauna’s warm and vulnerable style, this collection of essays focuses on the most important transformation in her life, and maybe yours too: leaving behind busyness and frantic living and rediscovering the person you were made to be. Present Over Perfect is a hand reaching out, pulling you free from the constant pressure to perform faster, push harder, and produce more, all while maintaining an exhausting image of perfection.Shauna offers an honest account of what led her to begin this journey, and a compelling vision for an entirely new way to live: soaked in grace, rest, silence, simplicity, prayer, and connection with the people that matter most to us.In these pages, you’ll be invited to consider the landscape of your own life, and what it might look like to leave behind the pressure to be perfect and begin the life-changing practice of simply being present, in the middle of the mess and the ordinariness of life.

    A Quest for More speaks to those who are beginning their spiritual journeys as well as those who can reflect on full lives spent in service to God.